


see how deep the bullet lies

by homeschoolvaledictorian



Series: running up that hill [2]
Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Gen, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Slice of Life, child fic, pre-junior high
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-12
Updated: 2017-01-12
Packaged: 2018-09-17 00:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9297083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homeschoolvaledictorian/pseuds/homeschoolvaledictorian
Summary: Four months after his seventh birthday, Akabane Karma meets his soon-to-be-best friend Asano Gakushuu for the first time. They are inseparable within a week.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom or any of its characters.
> 
> Hi! Thanks very much for reading!! It's not essential to have read thunder in our hearts, but it would probably be helpful. This is VERY late for Karushuu week.

Four months after his seventh birthday, Akabane Karma meets his soon-to-be-best friend Asano Gakushuu for the first time. They are inseparable within a week.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Gakushuu is a voracious collector. That’s not unusual for a kid their age, but it’s Shuu, so he has to be better at it than anyone else Karma’s ever met.

There are two catalogues, thicker than Karma’s head, dedicated to carefully pressed flowers and plants, each petal as vividly colored as the day Shuu plucked it. There’s enough twigs and stones on his shelves to build a bonfire. Neatly labelled boxes are stacked at the back of his closet: bottle caps, dice, playing cards, geodes, feathers, shells, spools of thread. Keys are strung from the ceiling. There’s a glass jar on his desk full to bursting with marbles. And, of course, there are the books. Every shelf that isn’t lined with keepsakes is heavy with books. Karma narrowly avoids smacking his head on something every single time he visits. Gakushuu’s room is always far cleaner than Karma’s, though, because Shuu takes great pleasure in paradoxes.

The only time Shuu’s room is truly messy is when Karma visits, because Karma likes the chaos of messy rooms. Karma also likes crafts, and Shuu’s collections can be put to good use when Karma’s got a tube of glue and scissors. Together, they’ve put out enough product to put an Etsy vendor to shame, though the intended use of each piece if often unclear.

“This is wonderful, boys,” Shuu’s mother says, studying their latest masterpiece with a bemused smile. “Um, what is it, exactly?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Shuu says, mildly offended. “It’s a doorknob!”

It is not, in fact, obvious. They had glued a handful of turquoise-striped buttons to a coffee can. The end result has a purpose left up to the imagination, and the boys have no trouble with this.

“It’s a doorknob _cover,”_ Karma insists. “You put it on the doorknob and it makes it. You know. Pretty.”

Shuu’s mother coughs into her fist to smother a laugh. “It’s lovely. I think this is exactly what we need for your father’s study, Gakushuu.”

The Asano residence begins to accumulate a collection of its own. Half of the picture frames are covered with shells. Collages of magazine cutouts are pinned to the fridge by handmade clay magnets shaped like animals. Shuu’s mother finally has to tell Shuu that he and Karma are not, under any circumstances, allowed to touch her sewing box anymore. The rest of her buttons are scattered around the house. One November evening, Karma brings over a huge landscape puzzle his parents had sent him. “They think it’ll keep me busy,” Karma says, rolling his eyes. “But I never finish these things. Besides, there’s usually a piece missing. I figure we can do something else with it.” And that’s how they end up gluing five hundred pieces of a picturesque field of violets to Shuu’s headboard. Shuu’s mother is much less amused by this turn of events than anticipated, and both boys are treated to a violent scolding. But Karma is not sent home, and that’s what counts.

Plus, Gakushuu gets to keep the headboard.

After that, Shuu’s dad finally decides to stage an intervention.

“How about,” he says, clapping his hands soundly, “we go to a crafts store, and you boys can pick out whatever you want. And you can do whatever you want to whatever you get, but we don’t touch the furniture anymore. How does that sound?”

Karma and Shuu look at each other and shrug in unison.

And that’s how Asano Gakuhou finds himself pushing a shopping cart down a crafts store aisle, full of Styrofoam balls and acrylic paint and enough glitter to kill a man. Karma and Shuu are bouncing back and forth between the shelves, oohing and aahing over every prospective art project.

“We’re going to need string,” Karma announces, like they haven’t bought out half of the store already. “And a lot of coat hangers. I have an idea.”

The boys’ obsession with travel and exploration is impossible to ignore, and Asano Sr. would much rather nurture than destroy it. However, the dining room table must be spared, so he sends the boys outside with old sheets. “The sun will dry everything faster anyway,” he says cheerfully.

Karma and Shuu carefully paint replicas of the sun and every orbiting planet, liberally adding glitter at each possible stage. Saturn gets its rings, Jupiter gets its moons. Each celestial body is left to dry, inspected for imperfections and fixed with a dab of paint, and strung to a wire mobile. The end result is a roughly accurate representation of the solar system. It is, Karma will later think, the loveliest thing they’ve ever made.

Most of their creations remain at Shuu’s house. Karma likes it like that. It makes the house feel like his, too. There’s nothing to share at his house, so there’s no point in decorating it. But Shuu looks at the mobile, and looks at Karma, and looks at the mobile again. Karma can almost hear the whir of his brain.

It is an exceptionally beautiful day outside. The sun is gentle and there is no wind. They’re on the back patio, the stone warm underneath the old sheets Shuu’s father gave them. The smell of green growth drifts languidly from the row of trees behind them. Shuu looks at Karma again, and his eyes crystalize into something strong and certain. Karma’s a little dizzy.

“It’s yours,” Shuu says, pushing it towards him, and Karma does nothing but gather it carefully in his arms.

“Let’s make another,” he says, and it takes another hour and a half, but the second mobile is even lovelier than the first, and this mobile is the one that Karma presents to Gakushuu. It is better this way.

The best part is that Karma gets to stay for dinner.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Shuu doesn’t meet Karma’s parents until they’ve been best friends for three months, when Karma’s mother finally insists on having Karma’s first and only friend over for dinner. Karma is so excited that he can barely repeat the offer to Shuu, five minutes after his mother proposed it. Shuu accepts, just as excited.

“What are we making,” Karma says interestedly, peering over the counter to his mother’s busy hands.

“What are  _we_  making?” Karma’s mother laughs. “You’re usually not this invested in dinner. Is this because of the Asano boy?”

Karma hums, sticking a curious finger in a cooling pan of red sauce. His mother slaps his hand away. “All right, I’ll take that as a yes. Would you set the table, dear?”

Karma is halfway through the dining room doorway with an armful of plates when he hears the knock. He looks somewhat desperately between his loaded arms and the front door, finally dumping the pile unceremoniously onto the dining room table.

“Hi,” Shuu says, smiling with an almost shy glance behind Karma. “I brought flowers because my mom says that’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“How sweet!” Karma’s mother walks over and sweeps up the bouquet of calla lilies that Karma had really been looking forward to smelling. Disgruntled, Karma steps back and lets his mother usher Shuu inside the house. Shuu removes his shoes, mumbling a “pardon the intrusion,” as Karma’s mother practically steers him towards the dining room.

When Karma’s mother sees the mess of the dining room table, she turns to Karma with a searing look that suggests Karma should finish his job. He hurries around the table with only a little bit of resentment while Gakushuu hides his snickers behind his hand.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Dinner is not as fun as it is at Shuu’s house, but it isn’t unpleasant, either. It’s katsudon with chili sauce tonight and that is Karma’s third favorite food, so he spends the first half of the dinner alternating between inhaling pork cutlet strips and eagerly glancing at Gakushuu for his reaction to the meal. Judging by the emptiness of his plate, Shuu seems to enjoy it. There’s a dab of red sauce by the corner of his mouth, which is the sloppiest he’s ever gotten while eating.

Karma’s mother asks them about school, and it takes ten whole minutes to tell his parents about what happened in art class that day. Shuu chimes in with his own commentary. Together, it goes a little like this:

“Well, Mitsuba-sensei wanted me to use the paintbrushes, but I really felt like fingerpainting was the best way to imitate the fur of a tiger. And it turned out pretty well, I think she liked it.”

“You got orange paint all over the table. Mitsuba-sensei didn’t really like that.”

“I think she just didn’t understand the artistic concept of it. Isn’t that a shame in an art teacher?”

“Yeah, she didn’t see it that way.”

“The table was black. If I added enough orange paint it would look like a cheetah, or a tiger! I’m creating art by creating art! Shouldn’t I get a commendation for that?”

At this point, Karma’s mother sighs and asks Karma if she needs to pay for any damages. Karma’s father doesn’t say anything. Karma brushes aside his mother’s concerns and moves onto the rest of the day’s adventures: what they learned in math class, the toad they found on the walk home, the new book on the exploration of Mars that Shuu got from the library.

This is the happiest moment for Karma. His parents are here, listening to no shortage of stories. Shuu is sitting next to him with a small smile on his face, and their ankles are bumping on every other swing of Karma’s foot. His feet are heavy from exhaustion, but his heart is impossibly light.  

O-O-O-O-O-O

Karma and Shuu’s classmates don’t dislike either of them, but they do seem perpetually baffled by their every word and action.

“My dad says we’re special,” Gakushuu says.

Karma tilts his head to the side. “Your dad says everyone’s special.”

Gakushuu makes a frustrated noise, agitated because he can’t explain his thoughts to a crystal-clear degree. “But he says we’re _special.”_

The idea of being more special than their classmates is secretly thrilling. After months of shutting out the rest of the world with his best friend, the world has learned to shut him out in turn. When Gakushuu is gone, pulled out of school for a trip to the dentist or sick at home, the thought of him and Karma being special is what pulls Karma through a long day of uncomfortable silence and awkward staring. He holds the thought to his heart and shelters it like the delicate flame of a candle. Everything feels kind of awful, but the feeling never lasts. Besides, the rush of racing over to the Asano residence after school with a sheaf of papers in hand almost makes up for it.

His mother doesn’t think so. Karma knows she doesn’t think so because when his parents are home, they always forget to completely shut the study door and that makes it easy to eavesdrop. It’s rare that his parents appear to worry about him so fervently, and boy does his mother make a spectacle of it.

“He doesn’t have any other friends, Ryuu. Not that I’ve seen. That isn’t normal for an eight-year-old.”

“It’s not _abnormal,_ Kasumi. Let him play with whoever he wants. As long as it doesn’t affect his studies.”

“His studies are nothing to worry about, he passes everything with flying colors.” Karma’s mother gives an irritated cluck of the tongue. “And Gakushuu is a wonderful boy, but Karma needs more than one friend. When he’s not here, he’s over there. He’s going to grow _dependent_ on Gakushuu, and where will that leave him if they grow out of each other?”

“Karma’s a self-contained kid. He doesn’t really need friends, they’re just nice to have. I’m not worried about it, and you shouldn’t be, either. Did you book the flight to Chennai yet?”

There are a lot of things about that conversation that Karma does not like. But he can’t find a way to verbalize those things, so they sit in the back of his throat with a rotten, medicinal aftertaste.

O-O-O-O-O-O

It doesn’t matter what his parents think anyway because their class is going on a field trip to Kyoto and Gakushuu’s dad volunteered to chaperone and they’re in his group and _everything is wonderful, no, **more** than wonderful—_

“Boys,” Asano Hanae says, bemused. “Stop running through the house like that. You’re going to fall and hit your heads.”

“But Mom!” Shuu jumps onto his toes. “We’re! Going on a field trip! To Kyoto! Together! In three weeks!”

She smiles and ruffles the hair on both of their heads. “Yes, I know. But I’m bringing the birthday cake out and I can’t have you two tripping into me. Or do you think these violets iced themselves?”

It’s Gakushuu’s ninth birthday today. Since Karma’s birthday was only a week ago _,_ Shuu said they could share birthdays and by extension, birthday cake. The birthday cake is Gakushuu’s favorite color, purple, and decorative violets are clustered around each of the nine red-striped candles. Both of their names are on it. Karma is in love with the cake.

For the next twenty minutes, Gakushuu and Karma oscillate between excitement at the birthday cake and the field trip to Kyoto. Shuu’s mom laughs and turns on the radio, swinging her hips to a catchy pop song as she finishes washing the dinner dishes. Gakushuu takes Karma’s hands and they spin across the living room, their socked feet sliding under them haphazardly, until Gakushuu’s dad comes down the stairs with a brilliantly wrapped package.

Shuu’s parents sing to them and Shuu and Karma exchange grins in the candle-lit dark. Karma still insists that Shuu gets the first slice, because it’s their birthday but it is _more_ Gakushuu’s birthday. No one mentions that it’s New Year’s Day, or that Christmas was last week. Gakushuu selects a corner piece because he loves frosting. Karma takes the piece that has his name on it, and eats it with hands that tremble from how utterly happy he is. This is the best.

O-O-O-O-O-O

“This is the worst, the absolute woooooooooooorst,” Karma groans, tucking his chin behind his knees. The train to Kyoto is delayed. They’ve been sitting in the station for forty minutes now, and the rest of the class is getting just as fidgety as Karma feels. Gakushuu is not so easily bored. His latest book—something weighty on marine biology— is propped open on his lap, and Shuu is nearly bent in half reading it.

“Hey,” Karma says, throwing his jacket at Shuu. “That’s bad for your posture. Stop it.”

Gakushuu snorts and throws the jacket back immediately. To Karma’s great dissatisfaction, he is too startled to catch and it hits his face. “Patience is a virtue, Karma. That’s what Mom always says.”

Karma sighs dramatically, holding a hand up to his forehead in mock misery. “If we don’t leave now I’ll simply die. We’ll never get to Kyoto at this rate.”

“Relax.” Gakushuu’s eyes are once more on the book. “This is a Shinkansen line. We’re on one of the fastest trains in the world. I believe the record is five hundred and ninety kilometers per hour.”

“Huh.” Karma leans over to pluck a brightly colored pamphlet out of the netting on the side of the seat. “Maybe this will tell me more.”

“If it keeps you busy,” Shuu replies absently, and the absolute worst is that he doesn’t see the face Karma is making at him.

The pamphlet is very informative. They are on a “bullet train,” which uses maglev technology. Maglev stands for magnetic levitation, so the train never actually touches the ground. It doesn’t even have any moving parts. The world record for highest speed recorded is—

“Shuu!” Ten minutes after they had settled into comfortable silence, Karma reaches over to smack Gakushuu in the face with the pamphlet in revenge for the jacket. “This says the record for greatest speed is six hundred and three kilometers per hour! As of April last year! What do you think of that?”

“Wonderful. So glad you wanted to share that with me. By hitting me in the face.”

Karma beams at him. “Anything to pass the time.”

With the slightest of jolts, the train begins moving. Karma whoops and presses his face to the window to immortalize every moment in his memory. Gakushuu isn’t quite as enthusiastic, but he does peer over Karma’s shoulder.

“This is it,” he says softly. “We’re really going.”

Karma nods. In the red duffel bag under his seat, a brand new brown leather notebook lies concealed. 

O-O-O-O-O-O

That notebook is actually the second notebook. They’ve been recording their adventures in a battered green spiral-bound since the fifth week of their best friendship, but that notebook is full to a degree bordering on the extreme. Karma was worried about the integrity of the spine, so the notebook is practically encased in duct tape. Asano Sr. had taken a look at the old notebook a month ago and shaken his head. A week later, he hands Gakushuu that brilliantly wrapped package.

It’s the new notebook. An inch and a half thick, rich brown leather, and two hundred and fifty sheets of thick, creamy paper. Gakushuu’s eyes light up as he flips to the first page.

_This notebook belongs to:_

“Mom, can I have a pen!” Shuu says—it’s more of a shout, to be honest.

“Hm, I’m not sure, I didn’t hear the polite young man I know my son to be,” Shuu’s mother says dryly.

“Please!”

She hands a pen to Shuu like she knew that was the first thing he’d do. Karma watches in awestruck silence as the pen approaches the line on that first page. Then he watches, in marginally more confused awestruck silence, as Gakushuu pauses. The pen rises, the paper still creamy white.

“Here,” he says, and the pen goes to Karma.

O-O-O-O-O-O

There are no festivals in Kyoto at this time of year. It’s disappointing, but much less crowded than it would be otherwise. The children are set free in groups of four or five, each with a parent chaperone and orders to meet back up at seven o’clock for dinner.

There’s an endless list of shrines and museums to visit. Karma and Gakushuu are with two other boys, Hanari Akihiro and Nakadai Shuichi, who are nice enough. Asano Sr. ensures that Karma and Shuu don’t monopolize the limited amount of time they have and asks the other two boys what they’re interested in seeing, but they have no set preferences. What they can all agree on, however, is that the long train ride has made them hungry. The food carts by the side of the road are making Karma’s mouth water.

With no festivals in Kyoto, there is also a rarity of street food. But there are still one or two carts selling nikuman and takoyaki. Karma takes a large bite of pancake-wrapped octopus and feels the warmth slide satisfactorily down into his stomach. He turns to Shuu, who scrutinizes his dumpling with typical Gakushuu-intensity before taking a bite. Hanari swallows and speaks up around a mouthful of nikuman. “I’ve been here during the Jidai Matsuri, the Festival of the Ages. It’s really crowded, but there’s a lot more food. And fireworks!”

“Oh man, I wanted to see fireworks,” Nakadai says wistfully. “But no. Shrines, shrines, and museums, and shrines. Why couldn’t have we have come in May?”

“Boys, this is a rare opportunity,” Asano Sr. says reproachfully. “You’ll still have fun, and learn a lot. The Kitamura Museum is only a few blocks over, why don’t we start there?”

They decide to leave the museum after Karma gets a little too close to a priceless ancient scroll. Or rather, the security guard makes a strong suggestion in favor of it, to which Shuu’s dad quickly agrees after he gives Karma an earful. Karma honestly hadn’t meant any harm, just a closer look, but nobody seems too upset about it.

The shrines look like pieces of other shattered worlds, too beautiful to exist in the everyday. For Karma, who has always preferred the outdoors, the famous moss gardens of Saihō-ji transcend all else. They only get to go because Shuu’s dad made reservations in advance. The first half hour is dedicated to hand-copying sutras in reverent silence. During the last hour and a half, the boys are left to their own devices in exploring the grounds.

Gakushuu and Karma have the kind of friendship that can handle silence in a confident and comfortable fashion. They take turns leading the way, switching at forks in the green-shadowed path. The moss laps at their feet like an ocean tide. Karma hums just a little off pitch. Shuu consistently stops every hundred meters or so to pick up a rock or twig, inspect it with a diligent eye, and then return it to its place as carefully as if he were handling glass. The air is coming to life around them and Karma can feel it under his fingertips.

“S’beautiful,” Gakushuu whispers slowly. It’s their first words in an hour. “Can’t imagine…” He leans down to pick up the latest object of his fascination. Karma turns his face up to where the cloudy sky should be. Though neither of the boys need more than a jacket to survive the current outdoor temperature, the day’s sunlight has been lackluster so far. But as if the clouds have cleared away, the air gradually intensifies into the golden glow of a sunbeam, the center of which lands on the back of Gakushuu’s head like a crown. This moment exists, separate, of all else.

Karma can’t say anything. He sees nine Styrofoam balls lined up neatly on paint-stained sheets.  Neptune hanging between blue-smudged fingers. Glitter on Gakushuu’s cheeks.

The moment breaks when the sunbeam fades and Shuu stands up, already moving down the path. He doesn’t look back, and neither does Karma.

O-O-O-O-O-O

It’s very late that night when they arrive back at the train station. Karma’s parents are home, but they won’t mind if he spends the night at Shuu’s house.

Asano Gakuhou turns into the driveway, parks the car, and looks into the backseat to tell the boys that they’re home. He sighs when he sees that they managed to fall asleep on each other on the twenty-minute car ride home.

Still, he doesn’t have the heart to wake them just yet, so he steps out of the car to call Akabane Kasumi about the sleepover. She doesn’t sound surprised. Karma is over at their house so often that he has extra clothes and a toothbrush stored in the hallway closet.

Asano Sr. shepherds the half-awake boys out of the car and through the front door. His wife, bless her heart and soul, had the foresight to set out the spare futon. He still throws his hands up in exasperated disbelief when he comes upstairs to find Gakushuu and Karma practically collapsed on top of each other—on the spare futon.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Mirai isn’t just home—she’s home for four months. She has a series of exhibitions floating around Tokyo, and Karma is determined to go to at least one.

 _You won’t need to bother,_ she writes. _Public exhibitions are not my favorite thing and I doubt they’ll be yours, either. I’ll give you a private tour when you come visit me._

That prospect is terribly exciting, but it isn’t going to happen until summer break. But Karma is ten years old now, and his father says that he’s old enough to ride the train by himself now. A trip to Tokyo is in his future, even if it seems distant. In the meantime, Mirai has a week between exhibitions and his parents are leaving for Toronto. Even though school is in session, that means that Shuu isn’t on vacation. His two favorite people in the whole wide world are going to meet.

Mirai flies in on a Sunday afternoon. Though Karma’s mother opens the door for her, Karma makes sure that the first thing Mirai sees is the huge homemade banner that he and Shuu are holding. Her name is painted on, and the kanji are practically dripping with glitter. Shuu yells “Tada!” as Karma uses his other hand to empty his pocket of confetti. It was fortunate that he didn’t inform his mother of this part of the plan, because suddenly she is shrieking and the festivities have to be put on hold so that Karma can vacuum the rug. 

After his parents leave, Mirai and Shuu finally have the chance to properly meet.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you!” Gakushuu says too loudly. His head is bowed and his eyes are squeezed shut. “Karma talks about you all the time!”

“Is that so?” Mirai smiles at Karma and dips her own head. “It is likewise a pleasure. I know he must be very fond of you. Your name is in every other sentence of Karma’s letters.”

“Wow, you really do have the same hair. It’s…lovely…” Shuu’s face is turning red very rapidly.

“Thank you, Gakushuu. Can I call you Gakushuu…?”

“O-oh, yes.”

“You can call me Mirai.”

“Well then, that’s introductions,” Karma says, also too loudly.

Something is up. He’s never seen Gakushuu so flustered before. It doesn’t stop after introductions, either. During dinner, Shuu spills his drink— _twice—_ and stutters three more times. Karma knows because he counted. Since his best friend is obviously out of the question for questioning purposes, after dinner he asks Mirai about the situation while Shuu is going through their movie collection.

Mirai smiles, but it’s a funny smile, like she’s trying not to laugh. She dispels the smile with a careful cough. “Oh, I suspect he’s just nervous because he doesn’t know me very well.”

“Shuu’s not really like that,” Karma points out. “If he doesn’t know someone, he’s really quiet and polite. He doesn’t stutter.”

Mirai lets herself laugh this time. “There’s another thought. Karma, have you ever had a crush on someone before?”

What? No? “No,” Karma says, eyebrows knitting together. “Why—?”

Oh. _Oh._

“He has a crush on you?” he asks, looking up at her with wide eyes.

“Just a little one,” she says. “Pretend you don’t notice it now so you can be pretend to be surprised when he eventually tells you about it.”

O-O-O-O-O-O

Shuu walks over to Karma’s house after his daily student council meetings with clockwork consistency. He quickly loses the nervous stutter, but if Mirai does something unexpected like ruffle his hair or laugh at a story he told, Gakushuu still turns redder than Karma’s hair. It is a wonder to witness and Karma has many, many pictures.

The entire week is a wonder. On Tuesday, Mirai takes them to a violin performance in the neighboring prefecture and introduces the violinist as an old college friend. Karma is thoroughly unsurprised when Gakushuu enthusiastically grills the violinist on every aspect of the instrument. During the concert, he had looked over to see Gakushuu with a rigid spine and shining eyes that meant he was going to be incredibly violin-proficient within the week. Afterwards they get ice cream.

On Thursday, Karma comes home from school to a kitchen full of Spanish music. Mirai is leaping around the island bar counter with reckless abandon.

“I’m going to teach you boys how to tango today!” she shouts above the guitars.

Mirai loves dance just as much as she loves photography, so it is completely unsurprising to find that the collection of photos on exhibition are dance-themed.

“I spent some time with a ballet company in Moscow last fall,” she comments as Karma and Shuu peruse her tablet’s photo gallery on Saturday night. “That’s a majority of the pieces from _Giselle_. Oh, but there’s one from _Carmen_ in Chicago.”

Karma knows a lot of well-traveled people, most notably his parents, but Mirai’s stories never fail to capture his attention again and again. Gakushuu is no different. After both boys get home from school, Mirai puts on the tea kettle. While they wait for the kettle to whistle, Gakushuu and Karma bend their heads over the notebook and try to squeeze as much information out of Mirai as possible. One day it’s Egypt, the next it’s Vietnam. Guyana. Belize. Ethiopia. Turkey. Karma writes until his hand cramps, and then Gakushuu makes a flow chart because he makes the best flow charts.

Karma knows he’s now not the only one a little misty-eyed over the thought of Mirai leaving. But Mirai has to leave, so that’s what she does.

At least Karma’s going to see her in the summer. In the meantime, he has to figure out how to hold this crush over Shuu’s head in the most devious way possible.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Karma is used to talking about anything and everything with Shuu, so it is a surprise when they don’t talk about the obvious changes in Asano Gakuhou.

Karma has always held a deep affection for Asano Sr. He’s always been kind and supportive and he possesses the brilliance you would expect from the father of Asano Gakushuu. That brilliance is still overwhelmingly present, but the kind and supporting nature is…not, for lack of a better word. Asano Sr. is cold and distant now. He uses words as weapons, and his son is now the target. Asano Gakushuu is allowed no weaknesses.

He starts inviting Shuu over for dinner more often, if only to have him away from that poisonous stare Asano Sr. is recently fond of throwing around. His parents aren’t usually around to make anything, but that’s okay. Karma has been learning and he’s really not bad at cooking.

He is also getting the ugly little feeling that Asano Sr. knows his intentions and disapproves of them. That Asano Sr. disapproves of _him._ Karma knows he’s not particularly ambitious, even if he is bright. But Shuu still hugs him just as tightly as before and that’s enough for him.

O-O-O-O-O-O

In the fall of their last year of elementary school, Karma gets sick.

It’s the flu. Karma stays home for three days until the symptoms stop. The next morning, feeling absolutely fine, he goes to school as usual. That afternoon, he’s so dizzy that he trips down the stairs and gives himself a concussion.

When he comes to, Karma is sprawled on his back at the foot of the staircase. He watches the ever-composed Asano Gakushuu scramble to his side, mouthing frantic words. Karma blinks slowly. This is not right. This is not right at all. He has never seen his best friend so distressed before. He tries to clear away the ringing in his head long enough to figure out what’s wrong.

But clarity doesn’t arrive any faster than medical assistance does, so he lets Shuu hold his hand until the ambulance arrives.

O-O-O-O-O-O

It’s pneumonia. Karma’s immune system, weakened by the flu, failed to protect his lungs from filling with fluid. Between that and the concussion, he’s in the hospital for three very long weeks. His mother visits in the mornings. Sometimes his father will sit by his bed in the early afternoon and parse through a briefcase full of files. Karma is alone in the evenings, but it’s not so bad when he has homework and comics and video games to distract himself with. The brown leather notebook, now significantly battered after almost three years of near-constant use, sits in a place of honor on his bedside table.

On the fifth day, Karma is finally allowed visitors outside of the immediate family. Shuu is there shortly after the final bell would’ve rung.

“What about your student council meeting?” Karma asks. He is well aware that the smirk on his face is not as wide as it usually is. “Don’t tell me they’re capable of operating seamlessly without their amazing leader.”

“What kind of amazing leader would I be if they couldn’t?” Gakushuu tosses a stack of worksheets in his lap. “I brought your work for the rest of the week.”

He looks awkward, standing by Karma’s bedside and only making eye contact with the IV bag by his shoulder. Karma rolls his eyes and makes a show of laboriously dragging his body to the other side of the bed. Shuu startles but doesn’t do anything; Karma sighs, pointedly loud, and pats hard on the newly cleared bedspace next to him. Shuu finally obliges.

They sit in silence for an unusually tense minute. “How is school,” Karma offers. “I’ve never been gone this long.”

“It’s fine, nothing drastically new. I’ve been having lunch with Sakakibara. He’s more tolerable than I had previously thought, though his inclination for dramatic poetry recitations is still irritating at best.”

The biggest difference between Karma and Gakushuu is their stance on making other friends. Their classmates seem visibly uncomfortable around Karma, so he doesn’t bother trying to exchange anything other than the barest of pleasantries. He’s been told this makes him look cold and aloof, which is baffling but doesn’t succeed in persuading him to change his ways. If Karma makes another friend, that’s fine, but he’s not putting any effort into it. So far no one else has either.

Gakushuu was like that for a long time too. But now, with the urging of his father, he views making other friends as a newfound necessity. He’s charming enough to talk any of their classmates into forgetting the past two years when he blithely ignored them. Shuu suddenly has friends on student council and the soccer team and the math club. It’s another thing that he and Karma don’t talk about.

Karma knows that these friends are not to Gakushuu what he is to Gakushuu, even without the four years of best friendship behind them. This makes him feel better in a way that he knows he is not supposed to feel. Karma doesn’t have any other friends, but neither does Shuu, really—he may have followers and admirers and acquaintances, but no friend to rival Karma. Gakushuu is not making friends for friendship; they’re something to build appearances on. Karma doesn’t understand why they’re necessary, but he doesn’t feel threatened.

Uneasy, maybe.

They spend the rest of the visit trading stories. Gakushuu is making nice with their classmates. Karma is making nice with his nurses, because Karma is ridiculously fond of the hospital’s pudding cups.

Shuu raises an eyebrow. “Have you eaten _anything_ resembling a vegetable since you got here?”

“Not on purpose,” Karma mutters. “Everything else is gross, but I have to clear my plate if I want a second pudding cup.”

He tells Gakushuu about the antibiotics and the needles and the IVs and the endless cycle of doctors.

“They won’t even let me go to the bathroom by myself,” he complains, holding up the remote attached to the side of the hospital bed. “I’m supposed to page a nurse so they can watch me pee and make sure I don’t slam my head into the toilet or something. It’s embarrassing.”

He tells Gakushuu about his parents.

“The school apparently made it sound like I’d gotten run over by a bus, my mother was going crazy with worry. And my father…”

_Father doesn’t even like—_

“He was worried, too,” Karma concludes quickly. He must have been. Karma’s father is not very expressive, his mother always says. He doesn’t show emotion like everyone else. But he must have been worried.

“I know you scared _my_ father,” Shuu says. “He was the one who called the ambulance, you know. He was meeting with the principle a few rooms down and came out when he heard the screaming. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him…” It’s Shuu’s turn to pause. “…like that. He snapped at the kids who got too close to you and got down on his knees to have a look at your head. Then he called the ambulance. His face,” Shuu starts. He doesn’t finish the sentence, shaking his head and looking at some point far beyond the hospital wall.

They don’t say anything for a long time. Karma’s not sure when they started holding hands, but when he looks down he can see their fingers intertwined in his lap. Gakushuu only leaves when the nurses tell them visiting hours are over. Karma hugs him tighter than usual, relishing in the smell of something distinctly not antiseptic.

It is the last time things are ever halfway normal.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Shuu doesn’t visit again. Karma tries not to think the worst.

He’s probably busy—Gakushuu’s always been a lot busier than Karma, because Gakushuu is an honors student and the president of student council and the captain of the soccer team and a mathlete. Karma’s schedule is absolutely desolate in comparison.

Karma’s best friend is the school idol. He almost spews the contents of his pudding cup out at the realization.

Life isn’t all pudding cups and skipping school. His mother is stringent about keeping up on his homework. The rigid atmosphere of medical examinations and the constant barrage of pills is suffocating Karma. He hasn’t been outside in weeks and there is a considerable amount of depression over that. After three weeks, he is healthy—sick of the hospital, but healthy. He thanks his nurses, sneaks out a schoolbag full of pudding cups, and returns to school the very next day. 

When Karma sees his best friend after two weeks apart, he feels a smile unconsciously tug at his lips. Gakushuu doesn’t see him yet because he’s talking to a group of classmates, but that’s for the best because Karma wants to make an entrance.

“Gakushuu!” he yells across the room, happy and excited. He expects something of a similar reaction.

What he doesn’t expect is this: Gakushuu’s polite smile, full of irresistible charm. Ready made for the masses. It’s not…that’s not…     

His blood is turning to sand in his veins. His body abruptly halts halfway across the classroom, halfway to Shuu. There is imaginary grit between his toes.

_…but he doesn’t feel threatened. Uneasy, maybe._

_Uneasy, maybe._

_Maybe…_

Karma is numb.

O-O-O-O-O-O

But Karma’s never been one to panic for more than the briefest of moments, so he plans on confronting Gakushuu as soon as possible and fixing—whatever this is. The problem is that Gakushuu is never alone anymore.

It’s as if nobody remembers that Karma and Gakushuu were attached at the hip three weeks ago. Gakushuu is constantly surrounded by “friends,” and if Karma ever tries to approach him on his own, someone magically appears to remedy the situation. He seems content enough to talk to Karma in the presence of other people, but it’s never about anything of substance.

Karma is starting to panic again, and the desperation is not receding into a carefully constructed plan like it usually does. Life is undeniably changed, and not for the better. Gakushuu was an integral part of Karma’s life. Now Karma’s really starting to wonder how important he was to Shuu if…if this isn’t some great practical joke Shuu’s playing on him. Because that could be it, right? A prank? Pranks are more of Karma’s thing, but this could be revenge for that bucket of fruit punch over Gakushuu’s head a few months ago.

It’s not like Gakushuu has cut Karma out of his life completely. Karma can sit with Gakushuu at lunch, if he wants to compete with ten other kids for a scrap of his attention. Karma can stand by the school gates and wait for Gakushuu to get out of his daily student council meeting, like he used to, if he just doesn’t mind waiting in line behind the handful of fangirls that _suddenly do that, too._ Karma _can’t_ be Gakushuu’s lab partner anymore, due to his extended absence from school. He’s shoved into a make-up group lab with Hanari Akihiro from class 3-B, who broke his arm around the same time Karma collapsed, and Isogai Yuuma from class 3-C, whose father died two months ago.

It’s through the group lab that Karma finally makes his first friends besides Gakushuu. Hanari Akihiro is tremendously book-smart, fourth best in the class, and doesn’t say much about it. But he says a lot about anything and everything else, and Karma finds that he enjoys watching Hanari go off on tangents about how he almost broke his other arm trying to get a coffee out of the vending machine the other day. He’s also a huge fan of superhero comics; Hanari and Karma will bicker over the best issue of Sonic Ninja until Isogai gently bullies them into paying attention to the lab.

Isogai Yuuma is an angel upon this earth and Karma usually feels the need to shield his eyes when he talks to him. He is truly the nicest person Karma has ever met, and while this sometimes gives Karma the urge to puke, it’s refreshing to be treated as someone other than the class weirdo.

Hanari and Isogai are good friends. But they’re not Gakushuu, and Karma doesn’t give up so easily. He just has to be patient.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Karma’s chance finally comes on a Thursday approximately a month after he returns to school. He overhears Gakushuu wave off his fangirls, thanking them for waiting but he’s staying late after his student council meeting tonight and they should really go home. The girls complain, but all of them acquiesce to his thinly veiled order. Karma busies himself with looking too busy to have heard any of that.

He’s finally going to fix it. He’s finally going to talk to Gakushuu and iron out _whatever this is,_ and then they’re going to be best friends again.

When school lets out, Karma walks halfway home to make anyone watching him believe that he is not coming back. Then he loops around to conceal himself by the school entrance. If he was careful enough—and Karma made sure he was careful enough—Gakushuu should have no warning of their confrontation and therefore no escape route planned. Karma has taken all precautions.

Sure enough, when the rest of the student council members leave, Gakushuu is not among them. Karma waits for another hour before he admits to himself that he probably should have considered just how long he was willing to stay to talk to Gakushuu. He immediately berates himself for that thought; any amount of time is worth waiting if he can _just_ _fix this._

But Gakushuu isn’t leaving. Impatience strikes Karma, and he makes a mental revisal to the plan. He’ll just have to find Gakushuu.

Karma methodically checks every classroom, keeping an eye out so that Gakushuu doesn’t slip past him. There’s no need to worry; he’s in a classroom at the very end of the hall, intently reading something out of a textbook. Karma takes a deep breath and knocks on the doorframe.

Gakushuu looks up like he’s been expecting it. When he sees it’s Karma, he sucks in a breath and his back straightens.

“Hi,” Karma says.

“Hi,” he replies. It’s a short, unhappy sound.

Karma could try to talk around the elephant in the room, but that’s not his style and they’ve been doing that for the past month. “You’ve been ignoring me. Ever since I came back. You don’t talk to me, but you talk to everyone else. You need to tell me why.”

“Tell you why—” Gakushuu clears his throat. “I’m not ignoring you.”

Karma gives him the most disbelieving look he has ever given another person. “Yes, you are. You absolutely are. I come back from the hospital and it’s like you think I’m still contagious. What’s wrong?”

Gakushuu quietly begins packing books away into his schoolbag. Karma recognizes a dismissal when he sees one, but all he sees is red. He strides forward and throws the schoolbag off the desk, and Gakushuu has the nerve to be offended, if the bark of “hey!” has anything to say about it.

“You owe me an explanation,” he says, dark and low. “I want an explanation right now.”

Gakushuu swallows thickly. “You want an explanation? Fine. I’ll give you one.” He stands up. It is the worst time to note that he is a centimeter or two taller than Karma, but it is also unfortunately obvious.

“Karma,” he says, serious as stone, “you can’t keep up with me anymore.”

Karma blinks. Gakushuu takes that as a sign to continue. “After talking with my father, I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re not evenly matched. You have no desire to advance yourself. And while that’s fine for other people, it’s not fine for me. I can’t be best friends with someone who plays pranks instead of joining a club. It just doesn’t work out.””

The room is spinning a little. Was it doing that before? “Karma,” Gakushuu says, concerned and almost himself again. “ _Karma._ Are you okay?”

“What,” Karma chokes out, “was wrong with any of that? I know I’m not the most accomplished person, but you never cared about any of that before.”

“Karma—”

Karma forces back a sob. “You have to give me something better. That’s not enough. I can’t accept it.”

Gakushuu looks visibly upset, which satisfies a bitter corner of Karma’s mind. “My father said—”

“ _Your father isn’t here,”_ Karma hisses. “Stop repeating what he says, Shuu. You’re not your father and the only person you get to blame for this is yourself. _You’re the one who’s letting it happen.”_

Gakushuu’s face suddenly twists into rage. “I know I’m not my father, _Karma._ But he’s right. I’ve _outgrown_ you.”

And just like that, Karma is eight years old and eavesdropping on his parents. There is a rotten, medicinal flood on his tongue and it’s pouring out in terrible, terrible words as Karma himself realizes terrible, terrible truths. “You think you have friends, but you don’t. Everybody wants something out of everybody else and when they take it, they’ll leave you. Nobody _really_ likes you. You think you’re doing me a favor by letting me go, but you’re only looking out for yourself. You’re too afraid of what your father thinks of you to even think of standing up to him, even though there’s _clearly_ something wrong with him—”

Gakushuu shoves him into the ground. When Karma looks up, he is _seething._

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong and you’re awful, Akabane Karma. _Don’t_ talk about my father like that ever again. In fact, _don’t talk to me ever again_.”

Gakushuu storms out of the room and down the hallway, footsteps fading into a silence that settles like dust. Awash in gold, the classroom is filled with the dying light of a sunset. It is not the kind of light that shines on Karma’s fondest memories.

That savage malice is gone, but the despair lingers. He puts his hands over his face. For the first time in over two years, Karma cries.

O-O-O-O-O-O

Karma does talk to Gakushuu again—with brusque words and acerbic humor and a strict adherence to the name Asano, and only when absolutely necessary. They are in the same class, after all. Gakushuu returns every barbed comment with a flat “Akabane” that manages to convey his hatred and disapproval perfectly. They are immeasurably cold to each other.

Karma eats with Hanari every day at lunch. Sometimes he waves down Isogai after tennis practices and they study together. It’s good, but. But.

There’s no going back.

One afternoon on winter break, Karma finds the notebooks where he stuffed them in the bottom drawer of his desk. He reads the first page of the brown leather notebook, flips through the painstakingly recorded observations and flow charts. Then he systematically destroys it, ripping out each page with something that feels a lot like resentment and a little like regret.

 _This notebook belongs to:_ **Gakushuu and Karma, best friends and brave adventurers**

_Rip._

_This notebook belongs to:_ **Gakushuu and Karma, best friends**

_Rrrrip._

_This notebook belongs to:_ **Gakushuu and Karma**

 **…** _Rrrrrrrrrip._

_This notebook belongs to:_

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if I got any of my facts wrong. Karushuu week inspired me to finish this up, as it's been sitting in my computer for five months collecting dust. I'm on Tumblr as haise-potato if anyone wants talk about this beautiful and tragically rare pair.


End file.
